OPORTO, Portugal -- Cuban President Fidel Castro, who was enjoying an unusually friendly pulpit at a Summit of Ibero American countries here this weekend, was not entirely happy with the arrest of his former arch-rival Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The reason: Pinochet stole Castro's show at the eighth Ibero-American Summit held here this weekend.

Pinochet's detention by British police at a London hospital this weekend became the talk of the day among the 21 heads of state from Latin America, Spain and Portugal meeting here Sunday. European newspapers, which Saturday had run front-page pictures of Castro's arrival here, dropped him Sunday for images of Pinochet.

A resigned Castro, coming out of a meeting with Spanish king Juan Carlos I, lamented that ``the Pinochet episode is taking over the media's space everywhere, and has once again pushed us to the back burner.'' This was in part because ``the event is unprecedented and highly unusual,'' he said.

``They could have waited until this meeting was over,'' Castro quipped, referring to the British police. ``Now, the talk does not revolve around the summit, but around Pinochet's arrest.''